Good enough parent

Good enough mother is a concept deriving from the work of Donald Winnicott, in his efforts to provide support for what he called "the sound instincts of normal mothers...stable and healthy families".^[1]

An extension of his championship of the "ordinary good mother...the devoted mother",^[2] the idea of the good enough mother was designed to defend the ordinary mother and father against what Winnicott saw as the growing threat of intrusion into the family from professional expertise, and to offset the dangers of idealisation built into Kleinian articulations of the 'good object' and 'good mother',^[3] by stressing instead the actual nurturing environment provided by the mothers for the child.^[4]

A key function of good enough mothering is providing the essential background to allow for the growing child's disillusionment with the mothers and the world, without destroying their appetite for life and ability to accept (external and internal) reality.^[5] By surviving the child's anger and frustration with the necessary disillusionments of life, the mothers would enable their child to relate to them on an ongoing and more realistic basis.^[6] As Winnicott put it, it is "the good-enough environmental provision" which makes it possible for the offspring to "cope with the immense shock of loss of omnipotence".^[7] Failing such provision, family interactions may be based on a fantasy bond,^[8] in a retreat from genuine relationship that fosters the false self and undercuts the ongoing ability to encourage continuing emotional growth supposedly offered by the good enough mothers.^[9]

• Bruno Bettelheim, A Good Enough mother (London 1987)

• A good enough mother
• Jennifer Johns, 'Good-Enough Mother'